Your Farflung Correspondent Requests Your Help

January 11, 2006 – 12:23 am | by nerd's eye view

Yesterday’s email included the contract for my volunteer position as Euro-editor for this year’s BlogHer. I have a few questions on the details, but esentially, I’ll be trying to publish the best blogging from and about Europe to the BlogHer site during the lead up to the conference in San Jose, California, in June. BlogHer focuses on women, of course, but hello, guys, I did ask about what the editorial policy is around including Y chromosomes in my selections. Stand by on that.

In exchange for my hard work (like I couldn’t use some of the time I sqaunder on the web contributing?) I’ll get the mighty muscle of BlogHer promoting Nerd’s Eye View. I’ve been having something of an identity crisis around the site. Note the remodel! Note the advertising! Note the participation in Performancing discussions on how to monitize your blog. (Bleh. There’s that word again. Monitize. Bleh.) I’m not going to sell a billion copies of Baked Insanity without some marketing, right? If I want to write less “To BLAH, click the BLAH and then, click BLAH” and more stories about noisy elk, I’m gonna have to get my writing in front of more eyeballs. Welcome to the shameless self promotional era of Nerd’s Eye View.

But wait there’s more. It’s not just about I Me Me My. I actually think there’s some pretty fine writing out there about European issues that warrants sharing. You may be shocked to learn that I am anti-Americentric thinking. It’s true! I know that I engage in my share of Eurobashing, but not more than I engage in my share of Ameribashing. Indulge me while I get up on a soapbox for just a minute and rattle on about how exposure and understanding of other cultures and ideas makes us not just better neighbors, but better people. Eh, you don’t need to hear this. You know. I’ll step down now.

Anyhow, I could use your help. I’m looking for first rate Euro-bloggers. I have plenty of good ex-pat sites bookmarked, there’s no shortage of stories about language lessons or the crazy local phone company or the significance of pork. You get the picture. There’s also plenty of primo travel stuff out there, plus, that’s a whole ‘nother category for BlogHer. That’s what I’m NOT looking for.

I’m looking for sites about European issues. I want the Ameriblog and The Daily Kos of Europe. I’m clearly a lefty but I look at stuff from the right, too. I’m also looking for photostreams, podcasts, and any other bloggy stuff that offers quality insight on European issues. I’m primarily looking for work by women – hey, it’s BlogHER, not BlogHIM, but I’ll certainly look at other stuff. I’m looking for English language only. I’m sure there’s quality stuff in all European languages, I just don’t have the skill to evaluate it. Unless it’s visual, then, okay, I’ll look.

Please post your recommendations in the comments. Thanks loads for helping me out in this upcoming bloggy adventure.

Note: Cross posted a few places. Sorry for dupes in your RSS readers.